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Journal Article Ppublish 21 citations

PubMed: 36436622 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160498

Quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples from hospitals treating COVID-19 patients during the first wave of the pandemic in Brazil.

Sci Total Environ 860:160498

Authors: Juliana Calábria de Araújo, Camila L Madeira, Thiago Bressani, Cíntia Leal, Deborah Leroy, Elayne C Machado, Luyara A Fernandes, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Gabriel Tadeu O Freitas, Thiago Leão, Vera Tainá Mota, Alyne Duarte Pereira, Carlos Perdigão, Flávio Tröger, Sérgio Ayrimoraes, Marilia Carvalho de Melo, Filipe Laguardia, Marcus Tulius P Reis, César Mota, Carlos A L Chernicharo

Affiliations

  • Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (DESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil.
  • Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (DESA), Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil.
  • National Agency for Water and Sanitation (ANA), Brazil.
  • Secretary of State for Environment and Sustainable Development (SEMAD), Brazil.
  • Minas Gerais State Health Authority (SES), Brazil.
  • Sanitation Company for Minas Gerais (COPASA), Brazil.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global health crisis, and wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as an important tool to assist public health decision-making. Recent studies have shown that the SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in wastewater samples is a reliable indicator of the severity of the pandemic for large populations. However, few studies have established a strong correlation between the number of infected people and the viral concentration in wastewater due to variations in viral shedding over time, viral decay, infiltration, and inflow. Herein we present the relationship between the number of COVID-19-positive patients and the viral concentration in wastewater samples from three different hospitals (A, B, and C) in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. A positive and strong correlation between wastewater SARS-CoV-2 concentration and the number of confirmed cases was observed for Hospital B for both regions of the N gene (R = 0.89 and 0.77 for N1 and N2, respectively), while samples from Hospitals A and C showed low and moderate correlations, respectively. Even though the effects of viral decay and infiltration were minimized in our study, the variability of viral shedding throughout the infection period and feces dilution due to water usage for different activities in the hospitals could have affected the viral concentrations. These effects were prominent in Hospital A, which had the smallest sewershed population size, and where no correlation between the number of defecations from COVID-19 patients and viral concentration in wastewater was observed. Although we could not determine trends in the number of infected patients through SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in hospitals' wastewater samples, our results suggest that wastewater monitoring can be efficient for the detection of infected individuals at a local level, complementing clinical data.

MeSH

Infections, Environment, Sars Virus, Virus Shedding, Pandemics, Wastewater-Based Epidemiological Monitoring, Covid-19, Sars-Cov-2

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